The Academy is now saying they're going to "streamline the awards given during ad breaks and broadcast them in an ideal form."

Translation: They're going to show them on tape delay, probably with the approach to the stage and most of the speech chopped off too. But then what will be happening in the actual auditorium while they're doing this?

Cuaron called out the Academy too, and considering he's widely expected to be on stage this year, the Academy is prob finally sweating the bad optics now since he will surely call the Oscars out in the telecast

If my memory is correct, if Malek wins, the only two performances that aren't based on a real person to win Best Actor in the last 15 Oscars will be Daniel Day-Lewis' and Casey Affleck's. Seems like these guys should be training with impressionists instead of acting coaches if they want to make sure they get one of these

Yeah, wasn't implying that they were superior actors to the others because of that or anything. This has been a stone in my shoe since Philip Seymour Hoffman (who I adored) won in a walk vs perhaps the best performance I've ever seen in a film, I'd argue solely because Hoffman was playing a real person and Ledger wasn't

Penn was playing Harvey Milk, Jeff Bridges was essentially playing Hank Thompson, but I guess you may be right on Dujardin - Penn's win for Mystic River will have been 16 Oscars ago which is why I didn't include it in that calculation and stopped counting

Allegedly some of the guilds volunteered to have their awards aired during the commercial break. Of course, that the Cinematography prize is likely to be won by a non-cinematographer couldn't possibly have anything to do with that guild okaying that, right sure okay. I'm like one step away from being an Oscar Truther

Allegedly some of the guilds volunteered to have their awards aired during the commercial break. Of course, that the Cinematography prize is likely to be won by a non-cinematographer couldn't possibly have anything to do with that guild okaying that, right sure okay. I'm like one step away from being an Oscar Truther

Thought I'd throw together rankings of all the acting categories with some thoughts:

Supporting Actress

1. Rachel Weisz
2. Emma Stone
I thought that The Favourite was very likely the best-acted movie I saw all last year, so I'm happy to see all three leads be nominated. Stone's role was the showier of the two, and I appreciated that she played it in a way that was different than many actors might have; on the page, it must have seemed more or less like a straight villain role, but Stone never plays her with that kind of single-mindedness. On the whole, though, I think that Weisz's role was a little more complex and more affecting.

One of the things that I liked about both performances is that both are able to make their characters emotionally credible without telegraphing their characters' actual motives. I've seen some complaints that it's tough to gauge their sincerity in all their machinations in court, but I imagine this is essentially what life at court was like - constantly trying to read clues as to what others are thinking in order to beat them at their own game and protect one's position. I don't really need to know what Sarah "really" thinks of the war in order to find her a believable character, and I think it's a real credit to the performances - and in fact was wholly dependent on the performances, especially Weisz's - that I found them interesting even though their motives are often obscured.

3. Regina King
The curious thing about If Beale Street Could Talk is that the most powerful moments don't have much to do with the lead characters. While the two leads are asked mostly to pose for art-movie reveries, the actors playing the family members had to actually play people and not idealized everypeople. King's character had the most charged scenes in the movie, and she was very good.

4. Marina de Tavira
I did not find Roma to be all that compelling, and that extends to this performance. de Tavira is fine, but there's nothing here that any actor couldn't have done just as well.

5. Amy Adams
Adams is one of my absolute favorites, and is long overdue an Oscar. So I wouldn't exactly begrudge her if she won, but this is a nothing role in a movie that didn't give a shit about the character. That's not Adams's fault, and this isn't even the most egregious acting nomination from this movie. But she shouldn't be here.

Supporting Actor

1. Adam Driver
A well-deserved nomination for an actor who always seems to bring something surprising to a role. This is a role that required a great deal of skill, because let's face it, the character arc of going from skeptical to true believer is something of a cliche, and even more than that, it gives actors an easy roadmap to follow for maximum crowd-pleasing goodness (see, for example, my comments on Viggo Mortensen). But Driver's insight is to simply redirect his character's anger and insecurity from inward to an external target - it's not so much an awakening as a reorientation. It makes for a much more credible character than the "Oh Lord, my eyes are finally open!" kind of crap we usually get in situations like this.

2. Mahershala Ali
I already find Green Book slipping from memory, and I didn't think either of the two leads was all that special, but Ali's nomination is by far the easier to stomach of the two. At least he's able to create something beyond what was on the page, and the inherent tension of his character - a wealthy, educated black man among black people systematically denied the privileges he enjoys - creates what few interesting moments the film has to offer.

3. Sam Elliott
Sam Elliott does Sam Elliott stuff. He gets a big moment with Cooper and it comes off well. Not a lot of meat on this bone besides that - the only real function this character has is to exist as someone for Cooper to model his performance off of.

4. Richard E Grant
A big walking cliche of a sidekick role. I don't think there was a single moment in this performance that wasn't utterly predictable and dull.

5. Sam Rockwell
Excuse me, but what the hell? This is a W impersonation that's no better than the average man on the street could provide, and he's barely in the movie besides. Who on Earth could have possibly watched this film and thought, my god, this is one of the best performances of the year!!!? One of the most baffling nominations I can remember.

Actress

1. Olivia Colman
I'm not really sure that I immediately understood the complexity of this performance. There's a lot going on here, what with the rabbits and the severe bowel issues and the inappropriately crude language and the overall childishness/possible mental illness/overall oddity. But in retrospect, I think it's kind of a fascinating portrait of someone who's been beaten down by tragedy while simultaneously being isolated by her royalty. How could we expect someone to keep her sanity in those circumstances?

2. Lady Gaga
A surprisingly soulful performance in a movie that maybe didn't quite realize that both her role and performance were the more interesting of the two leads.

3. Melissa McCarthy
Like Grant's performance, this one seemed predictable to me every step of the way. Her role was a little more novel than Grant's, but not much. But the Academy loves when actors play against type, even when they're not really playing against type.

4. Glenn Close
Another thing the Academy likes is when veteran actors act real serious in domestic dramas. And so we get a nomination for Close, playing a role anyone could play and have the movie come out exactly the same.

5. Yalitza Aparicio
I don't mean to be impolite here, but was anyone actually surprised to learn after watching the film that this is Aparicio's acting debut? To me, her performance felt tentative, underplayed, unnatural. It was a real weakness of the film. Cuaron isn't a very effective director of actors in the first place, and so going with an inexperienced actor in the lead was maybe not the wisest choice.

Actor

1. Christian Bale
More on him in a minute.

2. Bradley Cooper
I thought the decision to pattern his character after Sam Elliott was an original choice that paid off in the narrative. Cooper is a talented actor, and the biggest issues handicapping the film in my eyes have to do with his choices as director and writer, not as an actor.

3. Willem Dafoe
Like Amy Adams, Dafoe is an actor that I admire immensely and probably deserves multiple Oscars by now. Still, I felt like this film is so focused on its visuals that the performances, including Dafoe's, felt ephemeral.

4. Rami Malek
Malek is effective, more or less, but this is where I really agree with mfunk's ambivalence towards rewarding actors for playing real people. Malek had all kinds of footage of Mercury to get the voice and mannerisms down, so there was not a lot of need for him to create, as opposed to impersonate. And I honestly think any actor off the street with a plausible-enough resemblance to Mercury could have played this role without any detriment to the film's overall effect. The film's just so superficial in its treatment of the character - so little is demanded of the actor except to meet the basic minimum of resembling Mercury as people remember him.

So why do I have Bale ranked first? Because I thought he simply brought a lot more to his portrayal of Cheney. It felt deeper than impersonation to me, and showed dramatically more skill. Malek's Mercury reacted precisely as the script required at all times; Bale's Cheney required the actor to fill in a lot of gaps. For example, take Cheney's final speech ("I can feel your incriminations") - he's defiant and angry, yes, but Bale lets some cracks of defensiveness and insecurities show, as well, that undermine the actual words coming out of his mouth. Bale is an endlessly resourceful actor and the more time goes by, the more I admire this performance. Simply put, I think you could make the movie with any number of other actors, and get a much less effective performance from them all.

5. Viggo Mortensen
A performance that, like I alluded to earlier, precisely follows the roadmap that a character like this is supposed to follow for maximum crowd-pleasing goodness, complete with obnoxious Italian accent. He's like a character from a Farrelly comedy flown in and told to be on his best behavior while the grownups are watching.

It occurs to me while writing this that I'm not sure I've ever really liked a Mortensen performance outside of the films he did with Cronenberg. Must just be a meeting of the minds in some way. It's a dynamic that reminds me of Penelope Cruz's work with Almodovar; in those films, she's one of the great screen presences of our time, but in other films, she's seemed unremarkable. Perhaps if Mortensen had made all of his films with Cronenberg, he'd be one of the great actors in film history. But as it is ... well, he was pretty good in those three movies.

It occurs to me while writing this that I'm not sure I've ever really liked a Mortensen performance outside of the films he did with Cronenberg. Must just be a meeting of the minds in some way. It's a dynamic that reminds me of Penelope Cruz's work with Almodovar; in those films, she's one of the great screen presences of our time, but in other films, she's seemed unremarkable. Perhaps if Mortensen had made all of his films with Cronenberg, he'd be one of the great actors in film history. But as it is ... well, he was pretty good in those three movies.

Nice summary, Brian... and not just because I agree with your top choices and most of your rankings! Weisz in particular really kills that performance, and does so for what I think is the most difficult character to get right of the three leads.